A student at the University of Sunderland is creating beauty banks in order to donate beauty products to charities that support women throughout the North East this Christmas.

Earlier this year, Lauren Robinson, 20, set up a beauty bank based within the Media HUB at the University of Sunderland and reached out to the general public via social media in order to receive donations.

Essentially, a beauty bank works the same way as a food bank. However, all items are related to personal hygiene, sanitary and beauty products.

Lauren, said: “The idea stemmed from work I have done with homeless people.

“I hadn’t set anything else up that was like this but I had done outreach work with a charity called North East Homeless.

“We gave out food, drinks, fresh clothes and emergency shelter such as tents and sleeping bags. There was a distinct lack of hygiene products so the demand for a beauty bank was there.”

One of the charities Lauren has contacted is The Red Box Project which was founded in 2017 with an aim to provide and give young girls in school access to sanitary products after ‘Period Poverty’ was highlighted in the national news. They have projects located within every county positioned in the North East.

Anna Miles, co-founder of The Red Box Project, said: “Donations are crucial, not just at Christmas but all year round.

“The success of our project has been not only down to our volunteers’ passion and drive but the nearly 2,000 donation drop off points we have placed around the UK.

“We are fuelled by community kindness. The public have been incredible. We could not do this without them.”